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Tag: aivy hey you there making of

Fine Cut

Here we are – Oh boi it went by so fast – the final class of the Great Belgian Egg Hunt. Today we are presenting our fine (not final) cuts of our music videos. Here it is:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Oqn6YZ6TKHTzhVX2ctY1pwcGc

There is a major improvement over the previous edit. We shortened the awkward and long scenes and no longer spoon feed the story to the audience. Overall it is a lot better. There are still a few tweaks to be made, like the colour grading and there are moments in which Abby looses focus or looks at the camera.

 

Tones of Subjectivity

Art is arguably one of the most subjective things in the world of existence. It is a form of creation, which in turn is a way of bringing into being ones perspective.

What does all this fancy-talk mean? Well, it means that when a work is being created everybody will have different opinions on how that work should be. This is what we faced when collaborating to colour grade the music video. Up until this point the decisions had been fairly easy to make, as it is a narrative video there were straightforward ways in which things were done.

However, when it came  to choose a font and colour grade – differing opinions came forth. Should the video have warm tones, cold tones, what type of warm and cold tones? All these questions came forth and there did not seem to be a middle ground. Here are a two of the different grades:

Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 6.32.40 pm

Yellow Tones

Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 6.33.23 pm

Green Tones

 

Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 6.35.07 pm

Yellow Tones

Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 6.34.41 pm

Green Tones

 

Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 6.42.59 pm

Yellow Tones

Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 6.43.24 pm

Green Tones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although being very subtle differences, they do very much impact the final emotion of the piece. This however is still a very subjective thing and is a matter of personal opinion. Currently, there is still no sure fire method for deciding how our group will settle on a final colour

What We Learn

So a few things have become evident to me throughout the editing process for our Music Video. Especially as the camera operator for the shoot. Firstly, something which I learnt on the shoot day – ALWAYS have multiple memory cards, and do data dumps even if you don’t need to. We ran out of space on the shoot day, and this was after having somebody standing by with a laptop all day in case we needed to do a file dump. However, we didn’t NEED one and so we didn’t. But of course as soon as that person left the card filled up as we were getting crucial shots. This lead to me deleting a few of our extra shots, which ended up being necessary in post. WHAT WE LEARN.

Secondly, make a better shot list. Our shot list was very rudimentary, I was impatient when I had constructed it and due to time constraints on the day I hardly looked at it. This meant that we missed a very important establishing shot (Elvis approaching Rapunzel). Especially since we did so many repetitive scenes on the day, it felt like we were getting everything, and I didn’t notice when we missed it. Next time, have somebody ticking the shot list and make it more detailed. WHAT WE LEARN.

Lastly, allow for the action to run from slightly before to slightly after the shot you need. In a few instances we started looking for a specific action from another angle. But often I had stopped the camera too early or started to late, or simply not even have asked for the entire action to be carried out. This would have been handy later when the original angle planned for a scene did not end up being the most flattering. Let the action play out. WHAT WE LEARN.

Overall, I would like to say that I learnt a lot from the shoot of this music video. And next time ill try and come better prepared.

Rough Cut

Rough Cut time,

Over the past few days our group has been working to piece together a rough cut of our music video – one which we screened in class today. Its what we like to call a bolted together version, its basically all of the shots in some type of order, that give a good indication of what the final project will look like, here it is:

https://drive.google.com/a/rmit.edu.au/file/d/0Bx4en7MOmq_Td2NMVmNBTzhqVEE/view?usp=sharing

Most of the feedback was positive, however there were a few pointers:

– The cinderella trying on all different shoes scene goes for too long

– It seems repetitive with every princess going through the same order of shots every time we meet a new character.

– The Disney Princess thing kinda got lost with our choices of costuming and non-specific casting.

To remedy this it seems that the best thing to do would be:

– Tighter editing of the storyline

– Detach from the original idea and just roll with the characters as characters and not princesses.

Shoot Day in Review

Today was our first class back since the day of our music video shoot, and I still had not seen the rushes of our video. After the shoot I was so totally exhausted that I simply dumped the footage onto the Uni media server and went home. I was unable to review the footage at home because I dont have a CF card reader. However, on Monday morning I came in to return the equipment we borrowed, and I was able to copy the footage to my HDD. Which I still did not review.

However, when we arrived at class I expressed some of my concerns:
– Due to the desired look being a shallow depth of field, I had to push the shutter speed very high and I am concerned about a choppy look to the footage.

– There was lots of direct sunlight and this overexposed parts of our shot.

– The princesses do not look like princesses (Rohan you were right about the Princesses)

After class I went and looked at some of the footage – to my surprise the footage was not THAT badly over exposed, it seems that the LCD on the camera simply made it look worse than it was. Rohan also assured me that the blown out exposure was not beyond repair. As for the choppy shots, this was also not that noticeable – WOOHOO… Looks like we are going to be ok.

But, If i had my time again there are a few things I would have done differently:

– Used an ND filter to deal with the brightness of direct sunlight

– Used a VIDEO CAMERA for the wide angle shots where shallow depth of field was unnecessary. The sensors dynamic range would have been better for the over exposed parts. However, the closer shots we were able to get away using a diffuser.

– Not used a wig for our Rapunzel princess.

BUT I WOULD ALWAYS Like to have a hover board! It made carrying equipment a dream! AmtVoyO-5rz6RzTYJ6oqoE8Y3aeZIWFCgndr5sntaQtM

 

Scout! Wild Panic!

Tomorrow is the day! The Shoot!

So, when we did our original location scout we were still quite unsure about the treatment for the music video. We were still vaguely stuck on something to do with balloons and a guy with Elvis hair… Thus, when we did our original scout to the botanical gardens we did not have specific shots in mind. This caused me to panic today, because tomorrow is the shoot and I am meant to be shooting this music video with a camera I am not totally familiar with.

In order to calm my nerves I took a walk by myself into the botanic gardens today, I took my own camera and a 50mm lens, and decided that probably everything would be ok. Luckily now we have a good idea about the various scenes in our music video and the princesses that we want to have starring. Therefore, I was able to pick locations that would suit the scenes. The scout was quite a success as I enjoyed walking around the gardens at the same time. I talked to a few people and told them what we were going to do, which they found quite interesting.  Additionally, I was able to plan a few shots so that Im not totally surprised when it comes to shooting tomorrow.

Here is the current shotlist:

 

“HEY YOU THERE” by Aivy – Production Shot List

 

Shot Description TIME NOTE Location
1 Abby sitting on the bench absently strumming ukelele 0 – 0:20 85mm Aivy OpeningFurther around lake accross from Cinema
2 Reverse angle x x Original Location
3 Closeup of ukulele x
4 Distance shot from back near hill when suddenly balloons float into camera x 85mm or 24-105mm
5 Abby sees the shadow come over her?/ Sees baloons in the reaction in the water and turns around to see them x 85mm
6 Balloon reflection x 85mm
7 Abby perspective sees elvis hair from the back x 85mm
8 Balloons and elvis drift out of shot. Abbys eyes follow.
9 Abby gets up and runs after him FADE
Scene Change to Rapunzel
10 Rapunzel gets her hair caught on the bushes  Repunzels Struggle
11 Elvis hands her the brush tight shot
12 Abby asks for elvis through bushes shot
13 They walk off and they are having fun and talking about life FADE
Scene Change to Cinderella
14 She drops her stuff sits on the floor in distraught ness Do we wanna show the pathway?  Cinerlla Fall
15 Hands her thongs close shot
16 Abby Asks for Prince

reflection????

FADE
Scene Change to Sleeping Beauty
17 Trying to study Sleeping Beauty

Shouldnt this be rapunzel?

18 Hands coffee
19 Abby asks through the pillars
20 Rapunzel is busy trying to be beautiful on the tower and abby pulls her over / pulls her along Fade
Scene change to them looking for him
21 Crosses bridge and looks at map fade  Group Cofused Shot
Scene Change to Snow White
21 Scene plays out Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 1.44.52 PM

Bench Near Mulans Pagola

22 He hands orrange to them
23 Abby and crew show up
Scene change to Travel
24 Walking shots of whole group  Group Travel Avengers shot
25 Wider shot of the travellers MAYBE GET THIS ONE? Or just with the trio?
NO FADE. Sorta suddenly shows mermaid
 Locked off Wide
Mermaid shot
26 Ariel on bench (With baloon) and they tell her to come with them

she says no

Undecided
27 Wide of Ariel 24-105
28 Elvis is finally found! 2:35 85mm Establishing Final Shot
29 Lots of angles and the couple shot  Arch for the Couple
Fade to post song scene
Couple runs off into sunset with castle behind  IMG_3751

 

Treatment for Presentation

Today we will be presenting our final treatments to Georgia fields, here is the final presentation for our Music Video:

Text

Presentation

 

 

Treatment 2.0

 

Today in class while discussing our original treatment with Rohan when he asked that we flesh out the idea. It needed something more. We then started to discuss the characters, one suggestion from Rohan was that we over exaggerate the characters to make them interesting. Throughout this discussion we came up with the idea of using Disney Princesses. The idea is that we focus on the struggles of Princesses living in todays world. For example, we have Sleeping Beauty trying to study but she keeps falling asleep.

We put this Idea of having all the characters as Princesses past Rohan and he said it would probably be better to stick with other characters that are easier to portray and more exciting to watch on screen. However, we figured that we could pull it off and wrote the following treatment:

 

Treatment Written by Maggie O’Shea:
The clip opens with our protagonist, ABBY, sitting on a bench in a large lawned space by a lake. She is dressed in feminine, retro-­style clothing and there is warm afternoon sunlight. She’s absent­mindedly strumming on a ukelele when something catches her eye. On a path nearby, a man with Elvis ­like hair walks along carrying a large bunch of helium balloons. As Abby watches, he happily gives the balloons out to passers­by. At this point, she begins singing as she remains seated and plays the ukulele. After a few lines, ELVIS HAIR disappears.

 

Abby (still singing) cranes her neck looking for him, and stands up to wander around and look for him further. She can’t spot him, so gets up to look around.

 

We cut to our first character, RAPUNZEL, a young woman with absurdly long hair. She is walking through some trees, but finds her hair is snagging repeatedly. She sits down to try to untangle the knots, and is approached by Elvis hair, although we don’t see his face, who hands her a hairbrush and a balloon, which she accepts thankfully. As he disappears, Abby arrives frantically, miming and pointing to the balloon to ask where Elvis Hair is. Rapunzel points and the two walk in that direction.

 

We then cut to our second character, CINDERELLA [ALAINE THOMPSON]. She is walking along a path carrying several shopping bags when her heel breaks and she stumbles. She sits down and begins to try on shoes from the bags. They are hilariously varied and she is increasingly desperate as none of them appear to fit. As she tries on something truly ridiculous (eg, a pair of flippers), Elvis Hair once again comes to the rescue (although we don’t see his face), offering a balloon and a pair of thongs which she puts on gratefully. Again, Abby arrives at the sight of the balloon with Rapunzel and Cinderella offers to join the search.

 

Our third characters are an older couple, SNOW WHITE and PRINCE CHARMING. They are having a picnic, and we watch them take food out of a hamper until Prince Charming pulls out an apple, causing Snow White to recoil in horror. A hand enters the shot behind them offering an orange instead and a balloon. Again, Abby arrives at the sight of the balloon with the other princesses in tow and the group move on.

 

Fourthly we have SLEEPING BEAUTY [CINDY NGUYEN], a uni student reading a text-book and making notes under a tree. She tries to concentrate, but repeatedly nods off. After about the third time, she falls asleep completely, and a hand from the side of the shot quietly places a red bull next to her with a balloon tied to it. Sleeping Beauty wakes only to see him leave, and is shaken fully awaking by the arriving Abby and is roped unwilling into the shot.

Finally, we have a quick shot of a woman at a bench reading a book. She has already received her balloon which she is holding. When Abby arrives to ask for her help, she shakes her head, and we cut to a wide shot where we see she is wearing a mermaid tail. There is a jump cut to

Abby wheeling THE LITTLE MERMAID along in a wheelchair.  

 

In the final scene, Abby sees the bunch of balloons over a hedge or tree, and the group eagerly runs to see Elvis Hair. Abby is at first too shy to approach, but the group encourages her, almost physically pushing her towards him. She taps Elvis Hair on the shoulder and he turns so they face each other. They introduce themselves, and he offers her a balloon. In our final shot the two walk off into the distance and we pan up to a shot of the balloon.”

Our Treatment

After developing a basic concept for the video of Hey you There it became evident that the idea of two people running around with some balloons was not going to be sufficient to make a three minute video engaging. We figured that we needed to include some other characters to enhance the story. After some discussion, Maggie was able to type up the following treatment:

 

The clip opens with our protagonist, ABBY, sitting on a bench in a large lawned space by a lake.

She is dressed in feminine, retro­style clothing and there is warm afternoon sunlight. She’s

absent­mindedly strumming on a ukelele when something catches her eye. On a path nearby, a

man with Elvis­like hair walks along carrying a large bunch of helium balloons. As Abby

watches, he happily gives the balloons out to passers­by. At this point, she begins singing as

she remains seated and plays the ukelele.

After a few lines, Elvis Hair disappears. Abby (still singing) cranes her neck looking for him, and

stands up to wander around and look for him further. She can’t spot him, but near the path he

was walking down she sees someone holding one of his balloons. She asks the person where

Elvis Hair might have gone. The person points, and follows Abby, and we see the two looking

about for him.

We see the two arrive at a new location, still searching for Elvis Hair, and they see a young

couple with balloons. Excitedly, they approach, and once again the balloon­holders join the

search, and they look around for Elvis Hair.

In a third location, we see a third person with a balloon, with headphones in. The existing

searchers approach, and this person is more reluctant. However, after some persuading from

the others, he too joins the search.

The final people with Elvis Hair balloons are an older couple, enjoying a romantic date. They are

very willing to join Abby’s search as she approaches.

Here we have a few humourous b­roll shots of the group’s search, such as them puzzling over a

map, looking under benches and up trees.

In the final scene, Abby sees the bunch of balloons over a hedge or tree, and the group eagerly

runs to see Elvis Hair. Abby is at first too shy to approach, but the group encourages her, almost

physically pushing her towards him.

She taps Elvis Hair on the shoulder and he turns so they face each other. They introduce

themselves, and he offers her a balloon. In our final shot the two walk off into the distance and

we pan up to a shot of the balloon.

 

 

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